Deep Cuts Considered by College : Education: Rancho Santiago trustees try to preserve classes.

Facing a projected $6-million shortfall, Rancho Santiago Community College District administrators on Monday night outlined a sweeping reorganization plan and budget cuts that would preserve classes while calling for deep cuts in part-time employee hours, maintenance and student services.

Chancellor Vivian Blevins emphasized that the proposed $6 million in cuts is still part of a tentative budget outline for the 1992-93 academic year. She told the district’s seven-member Board of Trustees that it may be possible to shift existing personnel to student counseling and other services now targeted for cuts.

But dissident Trustee Shirley Ralston questioned the wisdom of adding three new vice chancellor positions to run the district campuses at an additional cost of $200,000 a year. And she warned that the proposed cuts to balance the budget shortfall will fall hardest on students who need the most help.

“We’re not reducing classes, but we are still reducing access to our students when we reduce student services and jobs that our students hold,” Ralston said.

Board President Brian Conley responded that no one was happy about the proposals. However, he said, the district had little choice but to adopt a balanced budget before June 30.

“I don’t think any of us want to cut anything,” Conley said. “But we aren’t like the federal government. We can’t print our own money.”

The lion’s share of the proposed cuts--$4.4 million--would come in the academic affairs and business services divisions, and include ending Rancho’s dental technology program, accepting fewer summer school students, and cutting back on instructional aides, part-time clerical and classified employees.

But the most controversial proposals were $405,000 in cuts proposed in counseling hours, student tutorial and testing services, student jobs and stipends. Angry students and community representatives charge that these cuts would fall hardest on Latino students, who make up nearly a quarter of the district’s nearly 47,000 students.

After meeting in closed session for more than 30 minutes, trustees unanimously named two new vice chancellors for the Orange campus and its continuing education center at Centennial Regional Park in Santa Ana.

But the trustees voted to conduct a national search for a vice chancellor to represent the main Santa Ana campus. Blevins said the search committee, which will include members of Santa Ana’s minority communities, will be seeking a candidate who has a “special sensitivity” to the diversity of Santa Ana.

Dean Strenger, dean of technology and science at the Santa Ana campus, will become vice chancellor and dean of instructional services at the Orange campus. Kathy Mennealy, who is currently the district’s dean of continuing education, was named vice chancellor and dean of educational services at the Centennial Park facility.

Monday night’s meeting, which drew few students, came against a backdrop of bitter infighting among board members over the district’s direction and the reins of power.

Trustees Ralston and Carol Enos have filed a formal complaint with an accreditation board for community colleges. Both trustees, who in the last year have been on the minority end of many board votes, have accused Blevins, district officials and other board members of failing to properly manage the district or observe affirmative action guidelines.

Other board members, however, called their attack “absurd and irresponsible,” and called it inappropriate bickering and political infighting at a time of great financial crisis for the district.